If St. Augustine Was Wrong...

This is my Opinion on the matter not a scholarly argument etc. Just bear that in mind when you comment

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Catholic patristic scholars since the 1560s have been showing that the Council of Trent's doctrine of justification is the same doctrine of justification held by St. Augustine of Hippo.

"the righteousness of God,— not that whereby He is Himself righteous, but that with which He endows man when He justifies the ungodly." - St. Augustine "On the Spirit and the Letter" Chapter 15

is the constant definition used. Now some folks like Alister McGrath say that poor Augustine didn't have Erasmus' Greek Manuscript (which had mistranslations of it's own) and that iustificare isn't the same as logozomai etc. Basically to short it to the point of triviality: Augustine was wrong, Luther was right. (Ironically another member of McGrath's church has argued that both Augustine and Luther are wrong (N.T. Wright), but there's the "perspicuity of scripture" for you)

But anyone who has read the wikipedia article on Augustine could tell you if Augustine was wrong, pardon my Anglo-Saxon but... Western Christianity is fucked, God is dead, etc...

If the Church which labelled itself as Augustinian for over a millenia was wrong about Original Sin, Predestination, Salvation, Pelagianism, Donatism, etc. Then God's Spirit is so impotent at leading the Church that there's no point in even believing.

That's my opinion. And if you think the Church was wrong about salvation for 1200 years then you might as well just become an Anabaptist and make it 1500 years, or a Mormon and make it 1800 years. Heck why not start your own church and just believe EVERYONE was wrong and it's actually justification by extrinsic interpretative-danced righteousness.

Finally: to Protestants, please give up the title Augustinian if you're just going to say he was wrong about salvation, you can't just pick and choose, even Luther said later in life that reading the bible through the interpretation of Augustine was like pouring milk through a bag of coal. So keep the title and accept infused righteousness, or give it up and keep imputed righteousness...or just remain keep your illogical idea that Augustine somehow taught what Luther taught even though he openly repudiated your doctrines.

I'm gonna regret posting this as all the Reformed will start attacking me like a Jew in the Gaza strip....and if any Jews read this I'm gonna regret posting this.

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The Cross

"For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God... For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness...the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men...as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord." - St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians chapter 1 (KJV)

Today in Mass we read heard the entire end of Mark's Gospel from the triumphal entry of Jerusalem, to the crucifixion to the resurrection. It reminds me of something the president of West Moorlands Bible College once said in Bible School : no matter how awful a church service is, if they read the Word, at least one part of it was inspired (ie. scriptures). The Msgr preached a very short but clear message that was mostly what I tend to call "Airy Anglican" social gospel which was to be expected. This is ok, neglect for the gospel in it's entirety is usually a fair expectation in the Catholic Church (and Anglican, and for that matter almost every church i've been to).

BUT

Then we went for our last confirmation class before everyone's baptism and my confirmation, and we watched a video. We'd been watching them all year and a theologian I liked was speaking, he had refuted the idea that Catholicism teaches "works righteousness" before, and explained how Augustinian justification avoids such a caricature. But today he was discussing the cross, and his words are almost seared into my mind and have made me sick all day. He said "there is a theology in the church (Catholic Church)- not a doctrine - but a theology of atonement, held by people like Mel Gibson and the Passion of the Christ, which says that human sin has closed the gates of heaven and that the only way for humanity to be saved was the sacrifice of Christ on the cross for our sake..." - so far so good - "...but I tend to disagree with this because of a few flaws it has, it first promotes a bloodthirsty God who wants to hurt people which is at odds with the scriptures (obviously he hasn't read the OT prophets), and it means that the teachings and life of Christ and the resurrection are meaningless, all that mattered was his death" ...I can't remember the rest of his sentence because of a fire burning inside of me to run up and kick the TV into the wall and the picture of Mary, but I didn't... he then went on to promote the Lombardian heresy - rejected by the Catholic Church officially via Lombard's excommunication, which smelled of the same airy anglicanism. It was the type of salvation model that apologists like Alister McGrath and C.S. Lewis use when they're backed into a corner (though I love both of them, they do this and it annoys me), where Jesus death was just a supreme picture of love and the full cost of his humanity, etc...

My mind was racing with the aforequoted part of first corinthians, and Isaiah 53, and the Nicene creed. I tried to anathemize the propogater of this heresy to our class by mentioning Lombard, St. Thomas Aquinas (who basically taught Penal Substitution) and St. Anselm (who taught almost the same thing), as doctors of the Church who should be respected above this man. But apparently our class liked the Lombardian heresy more, and the Presbyterian convert next to me (who should've known better) waved me off saying 'well the church has wrongly excommunicated many people' ...

I was outraged, I am outraged. I find the same garbage in every modern church it's not as though Catholicism is solely responsible for this view - it's been around a long time. Rob Bell teaches it, N.T. Wright semi-teaches it, and many other Protestants and Orthodox and Catholics, but man, it burns my blood. It robs the Cross of the victory, the power of God, I described the message to my parents as "Anglicized Judaism with nice feelings", it's what Michael Horton calls "Christless Christianity" (or Crossless Christianity - I don't remember), and while Protestantism has no effective way to deal with heresy, at least the Traditional Protestant Churches I've been to (Grace Reformed, Holy Trinity Anglican, my Grandma's Mennonite church) can teach a coherent biblical theology of the cross.

In the end, I feel obligated to be true to Scripture, the Nicene Creed and the councils of the Church. I don't believe Catholicism has officially destroyed the cross, but there's no question that our Parish has. When I read my catechism it is full of quotes all about the sufficiency of the Cross to deal with sin, the superabundant grace it bestows, and the patristic quote that 'there is no other ladder to heaven' than the cross. Trent affirms this, in my opinion. I think I'll just change parishes. But man, it certainly shook my faith.

May all Christians continue to confess the catholic faith
As the Nicene creed states:

"For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen."

A Presbyterian minister -who is much smarter, and much more a Christian than I will probably ever be, save by the grace of God - once had this verse at the end of an email he sent, where he accused me of trusting the Magesterium of the Roman Catholic Church rather than Christ, I still don't see the dicotemy (most of the time), but I will say that if I was guilty of it then, I am no more guilty of it, because I've tried to make this verse the key phrase to my entire walk with God, and I completely trust in Jesus and his work (on the cross and in my life) = "but a new creation") for salvation.

"far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation." - Galatians 6:14-15 (ESV)

and may our hearts be smarter than our heads today and every day.

Happy Palm Sunday.

Bitter Rant: Practicality and Theology

I had a discussion with my mom yesterday about justification again. I said that if the Reformers are right and it is imputed then I think God should let me in anyway because I've spent more time investigating this doctrine than arguably any other topic in my life. It seems like it's the only thing that ever gets discussed.

I actually had this dream the other night. My dad and I were standing on the edge of a cliff debating about Luther, Imputed Righteousness, Trent, etc, and I just threw myself off the cliff... I jumped. I've never died in a dream before - that was the first time. So I died in the dream and then everything was just black like a TV turned off, and then I realized there was no God, no doctrine of justification, etc, and that I'd wasted my entire life talking about an issue for which there seemed to be no answer and ultimately had no applicability.

yep. I don't actually consciously believe that, it's obviously an important issue if I debate it so much, but maybe subconsciously it's turned me into more of a Deist. I HATE it when people say just 'pray God will lead you into ALL Truth" and then quote John 16 whatever. You know what, God has actively led me into no truth. I've read books and that's how I learn truth, I talk to people and I learn truth. I suppose you could call those things passive leading or God working through secondary causes but at the end of the day, it's all the same result, God says nothing sensibly (ie. can't 'feel' 'hear' etc), I bitterly argue about what he does and thinks, and he still does nothing sensibly. There's theology. It's like waking up in a locked room with 10 other people and then you start arguing about what's outside the room even though no one has any idea about it. It's a bad example because it excludes revelation, but whatever, this is a rant.

And then I read Jared's blog where Irenaeus says the the pillar and bulwark of truth in the Church was the gospel and thought SHIT! it can't be that, it has to be some kind of ethereal kingship left by Peter in a way foreign to scripture... so now my ecclesiology - which was the only clear part of my faith - is utterly shaken, because that gospel = church argument was Calvin's and McGrath misled me by saying no one had argued that before in his book "Christianity's dangerous idea" and now I want to mail an angry letter to Alister McGrath for ruining my week.

And I enter either the Whore of Babylon and damn myself or the "One true church" and save myself in 8 days and 7 hours... and I don't even care about any churches anymore, or theology. All I can think of is how much I hate theology now and how lucky everyone else in the world is who just go along with their protestant lives not questioning anything, not opening a book on church history, not caring to explain their positions at all, just to condemn me.

domine iesu christe miserere mei peccatoris...
kyrie eliesen.

rant over

amen.

and to all the worried Catholic spies, don't worry i'll enter your church as planned, you'll have your convert and then everyone can go along not caring as usual... so much for an 'exciting' 'celebration' heh...

I'm good enough for Dr. Alister McGrath, St. Augustine, and C.S. Lewis, why not you?

I can't get the spacing on this blog to work properly at all. .. it's either 4 empty lines, or everything smashed together without space.


Anyway... so allegedly I've been becoming "Anti-Protestant" or as Michael calls it "Jerky Catholic" or triumphalistic. I don't feel like I'm any more anti-protestant than any of my Protestant friends are anti-Catholic. At least I call them Christians... So while I do not defend any outrage on my own part, I hope to at least shed some light on why I'm so very angry.

1. I'm A CHRISTIAN! - I'm getting really tired of people either telling me I'm not a Christian, or following a false gospel, idolater, etc. I cite in my defense, this man:

Dr. Alister McGrath - IUSTITIA DEI was a book written by this Oxford scholar and self-proclaimed Evangelical Anglican and in it he writes this on Catholic/Augustinian Justification (sorry to quote in full, if you trust me just skip it):

"Once justified by divine action, the sinner does not at once become a perfect example of holiness. Humans need to pray to God continually for their growth in holiness and the spiritual life, thereby acknowledging that God is the author of both. God operates upon humans in the act of justification, and co-operates with them in the process of justification. Once justified, the sinner may begin to acquire merit—but only on account of God’s grace. Merit is seen to be a divine rather than a human work. Thus it is clearly wrong to suggest that Augustine excludes or denies merit; while merit before justification is indeed denied, its reality and necessity after justification are equally strongly affirmed. It must be noted, however, that Augustine understands merit as a gift from God to the justified sinner … Hominis bona merita, Dei munera. Eternal life is indeed the reward for merit—but merit is itself a gift from God, so that the whole process must be seen as having its origin in the divine liberality, rather than in human works. If God is under any obligation to humans on account of their merit, it is an obligation which God has imposed upon himself, rather than one which is imposed from outside, or is inherent in the nature of things. … There is no hint in Augustine of any notion of justification purely in terms of ‘reputing as righteous’ or ‘treating as righteous’, as if this state of affairs could come into being without the moral or spiritual transformation of humanity of grace. The pervasive trajectory of Augustine’s thought is unambiguous: justification is a causative process, by which an ungodly person is made righteous. It is about the transformation of the impius to iustus.

Augustine has an all-embracing transformative understanding of justification, which includes both the event of justification (brought about by operative grace) and the process of justification (brought about by operative grace). Augustine himself does not, in fact, see any need to distinguish between these two aspects of justification; the distinction dates from the sixteenth century. … The righteousness which God bestows upon humanity in justification is regarded by Augustine as inherent rather than imputed, to anticipate the vocabulary of the sixteenth century. A concept of ‘imputed righteousness’, in the later Protestant sense of the term, is quite redundant within Augustine’s doctrine of justification, in that humans are made righteous in justification. The righteousness which they thus receive, although originating from God, is nevertheless located within humans, and can be said to be theirs, part of their being and intrinsic to their persons. An element which underlies this understanding of the nature of justifying righteousness is the Greek concept of deification, which makes its appearance in the later Augustinian soteriology. By charity, the Trinity itself comes to inhabit the soul of the justified sinner." - Alister McGrath (Iustitia Dei, pp. 43-44, 47-48)

Ok. So the Protestants keep saying "APOSTASY!" well if St. Augustine and those Fathers who drew the lines on the canon of Holy Scripture, upheld the Church, the doctrines of grace and Original sin - if those men were all wrong about the key point 'on which the church stands or falls', then I don't think Christianity is true. If God can't save his own Church for 16 centuries then he is either an inept or a terrible God. And if Alister McGrath is ok with my view on Justification, then I'm ok with my view on Justification.

There I said it. Leave me alone. Trent ratified St. Augustine. That is the catholic faith.


2. I only have about 2 Roman Catholic friends. Basically I'm constantly surrounded by Protestants and feel suffocated. It's like being a Calvinist and growing up in the Southern Baptist Convention. You feel like if you don't scream every once and a while, you'll wake up one morning without a voice, or worse, a desire to scream

3. I'm a sinner. I'm in counseling, and I don't have the sacraments yet, so leave me alone.

All of the below I have stolen from Dave Armstrong's "Biblical Evidence for Catholicism" blog. So let it be known I'm not trying to plagiarize anything. http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2007/03/cs-lewiss-views-on-christian-unity-and.html - I recommend reading the whole thing, I just wanted to quote part of it here:

"That the whole cause of schism lies in sin I do not hold to be certain. I grant that no schism is without sin but the one proposition does not necessarily follow the other . . . what would I think of your Thomas More and of our William Tyndale? All the writings of the one and all the writings of the other I have lately read right through. Both of them seem to me most saintly men and to have loved God with their whole heart: I am not worthy to undo the shoes of either of them. Nevertheless they disagree and (what racks and astounds me) their disagreement seems to me to spring not from their vices nor from their ignorance but rather from their virtues and the depths of their faith, so that the more they were at their best the more they were at variance. I believe the judgement of God on their dissension is more profoundly hidden than it appears to you to be: for His judgements are indeed an abyss." - C.S. Lewis (Letters: C.S. Lewis / Don Giovanni Calabria [25 November 1947], 37, 39)